Alternative Search Engines to Google

Google is no doubt the biggest search engine in today’s market.

Their competitors are not even within eyeshot of them at this point as they have grown so much over the last two decades (since 1998) they have been operating.

We always Google things, whether we are looking for information on a certain topic, trying to find the definition for a word we don’t understand, or looking to see if our sore throat is anything serious.

Ultimately, the Google search engine is great and has become part of our everyday lives.

But the company behind it has not been short on controversies over the last couple of years.

From tax avoidance, misuse and manipulation of search results as well as its use of intellectual property and its users’ data.

Because of this, it might be a good time for all of us to check out a few options other than Google and go search for a new alternative, like many old users are already doing.

But what are the alternatives?

Alternative Search Engines

It can feel like Google is your only option when it comes to search engines, because of how big they are.

But upon research, we have found many great alternatives that you can start using right after you finish reading this article.

We will be judging these search engines on the things they offer as well as what makes them unique.

And just how private they are.

Without further ado, let’s get into our first search engine.

Dogpile

I remember the Dogpile search engine from back in the day. The early days of search engines. And it was pretty cool back then.

And surprisingly, it is really cool and useful today in the year 2021.

Why is the Search Engine Dogpile Still Useful?

Because according to their own documentation:

Dogpile returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google and Yahoo!, so you find what you’re looking for faster.

From Dogpile

Go ahead and try Dogpile. Let their dog Arfie go fetch your search results.

Ecosia

Every search we have put through Google has contributed to the creation of carbon dioxide due to the way their servers are run – the multi-billion dollar company makes up for 40% of the carbon footprint the internet as a whole is responsible for.

We are telling you this because thanks to Ecosia, who plant trees every time you use their search, you can now help to reverse the damage you have caused.

Every search request you make removes approximately 1kg CO2 from the atmosphere.

They also run their servers on 200% renewable energy, ensuring that they are not putting anymore CO2 into the atmosphere.

They also publish their financial reports every month, making them more transparent than their giant competitor, giving users the opportunity to see where the income from each search goes.

What is privacy like?

Knowing that you are helping out the planet each time you search something on Ecosia is awesome as it allows you the opportunity to help out without actually really doing anything.

But what makes using Ecaosia feel even better is knowing that they don’t sell your data to advertisers.

They also have no third party tracking and they completely anonymize all of their user’s search data within the week it was requested.

Allowing you to stay anonymous whilst you’re helping reverse the damage you caused using Google for all these years.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is another great search engine we found that is a great alternative to Google.

Though they don’t really have any neat gimmicks like Ecosia have such as planting trees every time you search or ensuring that their servers are running on renewable power.

They do however have a pretty cool feature called !Bang which allows you to search something on a website whilst still being on the DuckDuckGo search engine.

For example, searching !amazon Dog Collars will take you directly to Amazon’s search results, which show Dog Collars.

From our short experience on DuckDuckGo, they essentially offer a service which in our opinion essentially improves the one that you are used to having on Google.

Offering an infinite scrolling experience so that you don’t have to skip through pages (and sit through load times) to find the results you want as well as ensuring that you are not being blasted with ads.

What is privacy like?

Just like Ecosia, DuckDuckGo does not track and log their user’s search results, allowing you to get a completely private experience every time you use your new favorite search engine.

Qwant

The next search engine on this list is great for music fans, as they have a fully dedicated search option that users can use to search for lyrics so you can finally find the name of the song you just couldn’t get out of your head.

Other than that, France based search engine Qwant offers a user-friendly interface, much like DuckDuckGo, making sure that you can search for whatever you need without it being an annoying experience.

What is privacy like?

Just like the previous search engines in this list, Qwant offers a completely privacy-based experience, refusing to collect your data whenever you use their search engine meaning that you won’t see annoying targeted ads whilst you scroll through their results page.

Swisscows

Particularly popular amongst parents, Swisscows offers a safe search experience which allows you to filter out the things you wouldn’t want your child looking at whilst they are online – these filter can’t be overridden by the child’s profile either.

This type of filtering is handy as blocking certain things online is very much possible but can be quite a pain since you have to go through your ISP’s platform, which doesn’t always work and usually isn’t a straight forward experience like Swisscows’ is.

It also uses a semantic information recognition algorithm, which allows you to find further relevant or popular quires to help you find even more information on the topic you are searching for.

What is Privacy like?

Swisscows provides a fully encrypted search experience to help protect your privacy and security.

Unwilling to store your personal data, IP address, or even your search queries, Swisscows is one of the safest search engines you could use whilst browsing the internet.

As its servers are based in Switzerland, which has some of the world’s strictest privacy policies.

Summary

Google offers a great service, which is why you can contact us for SEO, and its popularity and success show that.

But if you go looking for other options, there are plenty of other search engines that can offer a similar and maybe even better experience than the one you could find on Google.

As well as offering you additional benefits such as an encrypted and safe experience for all the family and it some cases even allowing you to help the planet whilst you search for the information you need.